There were also more chandeliers, similar to the ones posted last time (or maybe they're the exact same ones, just moved to a different location), along with what I believe is a fabric-y light fixture in the foreground (though I'm not entirely sure). The urn on that same table is certainly an interesting touch!
It's odd how many random sports balls have ended up in these Macy's closing photos. There were some footballs earlier and now a basketball. Maybe there were random golf and tennis balls floating around this store at one time as well, lol.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about Bon Marche, but Foley's and other similar department stores would have sold sporting goods at one time. Of course, that was decades ago so I'm guessing all that inventory is long gone and that these sports balls are newer.
It doesn't look like the NW has any Dillard's department stores. Around here, they look to be doing better than Macy's is here in modern times. They also have somewhat better merchandise and store organization. Anyway, you've probably heard of Dillard's even if you've never been to one (it looks like the closest ones to you are in Idaho and Montana). Here in Houston, Dillard's bought their way into the Houston market via buying out the Joske's chain of department stores that were a tad more upscale than Foley's, but they were around the same level. They were often in different malls until the 1970s when mega malls started being built that had both chains.
The Dallas area got Dillard's a little earlier than we did. People tend to forget that these upscale department stores had departments like sporting goods, appliances, and electronics. In fact, we bought some electronics from Dillard's, Joske's, Foley's, and Macy's (the pre-Foley's Macy's...the real Macy's that was a lot nicer than the mediocre retailer that they've become since 2006). In that regard, here is a video from 1983 from that Texas History page showing the electronics department at Dillard's. They got one of the very first CD players, a Magnavox model made by the co-inventor of the CD format, Philips from the Netherlands. Also seen in the video is some great Marantz Hi-Fi gear and you can also see appliances in the background. Also, against the wall are Texas Instruments computer/video game software.
Anyway, early computers and Hi-Fi are all well before your time, lol, but maybe you'll like seeing department stores as they were during the tail end of their glory days: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1175530/m1/
In Dallas, Foley's became Macy's like it did here. Foley's entered Dallas in the late 1980s when Foley's took over the Sanger Harris department store chain in a move that was probably as unpopular there as Macy's taking over all the chains they did in 2006. Anyway, here's a couple of clips of interest to that.
First, here's a 1977 clip of the grand opening of a Sanger Harris store (apparently the first grand opening since the consolidation of Sanger and Harris, but I don't know anything about that). Check out how much of a formal affair that was! Department stores certainly don't have that kind of glitz and glamor today. Maybe Nordstorm does in your neck of the woods since they're based there, but even then I have my doubts! Link: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1157767/m1/
And, finally, here's a video about Sanger Harris becoming Foley's: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc854671/m1/
Ha, I have no idea what's up with the random sports stuff. Something an employee left behind in the back room? Something a customer brought in and just stuck there? Who knows! It's weird to think of stores like Macy's ever carrying that sort of stuff, but thinking about Sears, it doesn't seem like as much of a stretch (and I know other department stores once carried products more like what Sears still [technically] does).
DeleteI don't believe we ever had Dillard's around here -- in fact, I had no idea they were as close as Idaho and Montana! (That means the closest Dillard's to me is probably closer than the closest remaining Kmart, which feels crazy...) Around here, the big department store chains (within my lifetime, at least) were traditionally Macy's/the Bon Marche, JCPenney, Nordstrom, and Sears... of those, Sears is down to just one store (which I know is better than many areas), Macy's and JCPenney have been closing lots of stores in recent years, and Nordstrom was never that widespread, so there really aren't any department store chains around here that seem to be doing well at all. Seattle proper is down to just one department store remaining, the flagship Nordstrom downtown. Those scenes from the past are hard to imagine these days!
It's even hard for me to believe that department stores once sold everything they sold and I lived through the tail-end of those glory days for department stores! That seems so much in the distance now that it almost feels like it didn't happen!
DeleteHere's an interesting video from 1984 talking about JCPenney giving up on hardlines and focusing on just fashions. Even in that video, they talk about department stores becoming dinosaurs. Link: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1176611/m1/
One thing about department stores, and it probably explains one reason why department stores are still big in countries like Mexico, is that back before the 1980s, many people did not have credit cards as we know them today like Visa, Master Card, and so forth. About the only credit people had were on department store credit cards and so they had to make purchases from those department stores if they needed to buy something on credit. Now that most Americans have credit cards that are accepted anywhere, there really isn't that need to shop at a department stores. Looking at Je's photos of Mexican department stores, they still market their in-store credit quite heavily so I suspect store-specific credit is still a big deal there and that might explain the strength of their department stores which still look like American department stores from the 1970s (albeit with more modern decor, of course).
In that regard, Sears actually launched their own credit card in the mid-1980s, the Discover Card, that could be used anywhere. It was a pretty big success. Discover is no longer owned by Sears, but it's a pretty big thing now. Sears was smart in taking on the already strong credit card companies by eliminating merchant fees on Discover transactions. That meant that even Sears' biggest competitors wanted people to use Discover since they could keep more of their revenue instead of giving it to Visa or Master Card. Some retailers didn't want to give Sears credit though so they called it the Novus card, lol. If you see an old 'credit cards accepted here' label from the 1990s at a store, you might see Novus on there instead of Discover.
But, yeah, if you walked around a Sears store in the late 1980s/early 1990s, there was usually someone walking around trying to sign you up for a Discover card, lol. In some ways, Sears may have hastened their own demise with their success with Discover, but it was going to happen regardless if Discover ever existed so at least Sears management of the time managed to make lemonade out of the lemons they were dealing with.
I never knew that about Discover/Novus. Very interesting!
DeleteAnd Dillard's is the best, lol.
Sears was very much in the middle of their 'stocks & socks' strategy in the 1980s. In addition to their retail operations, they had an investment bank in Dean Witter (similar to Fidelity Investments today or something like that), Coldwell Banker real estate (similar to a Re/Max or something similar to that), Sears Mortgage, and Allstate insurance. Larger Sears stores had space for offices for all those operations so that someone could buy investments, sell their house, buy insurance, sign up for a Discover Card, and buy a Craftsman screwdriver all in one visit to the store, lol.
DeleteLike a lot of 1980s attempts at diversification, some people attribute this lack of focus on retail operations as a reason why so many strong retailers from that era failed in the 1990s and 2000s. I don't know though, retailers like Wal-Mart and Dayton-Hudson/Target had a lot of experiments as well (though mostly retail related) and it most certainly hasn't hurt them. Amazon is most certainly diversified as well.
Kmart apparently tried to get in on the 'stocks & socks' strategy as well, but I didn't know this until last week when I came across this Texas History video. It seems Kmart's attempts at selling banking products were not as successful in North Texas as they were in Florida and so we never heard about it here in Houston or anywhere else in the country. Link: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1175842/m1/
Here's a Discover Card commercial from 1985 and you can see the "Sears Financial Network" text at the end before they say that Discover is accepted at Montgomery Ward, Toys R Us, and Zales. You might wonder why Montgomery Ward would want to latch onto one of Sears' projects, but this brings up a very interesting little story about 1980s retail. At the time, the CEO of Sears and Montgomery Ward, Edward Brennan and Bernard Brennan respectively, were brothers!
Discover ad from 1985: https://youtu.be/K56myngR83c
The two retailers were still fierce rivals (though I think Sears was not as worried about Wards as much at the time as they were about Kmart, Walmart, and others), but I suppose Bernard Brennan knew that embracing Discover would be a winner for Wards. In addition to the lack of transaction fees with the Discover Card, Wards knew that they accepted Discover and the other cards whereas Sears at the time was only taking Discover and their own Sears card. This gave them the broadest options for customers and I'm sure that helped them with sales at least before other retailers started taking Discover and Sears started taking other cards a few years later.
But, yeah, can you imagine the CEOs of Walmart and Target being brothers?! It's really quite unthinkable!
As for Dillard's, well, they are based in Arkansas! They certainly have a bit of a southern flavor to them, but I'll give them credit that they have not declined in quality nearly as much as Macy's has.
I knew about some of those Sears things, like Allstate (which I believe still has its Port Angeles office inside the local Sears Hometown store), but certainly not Discover Card! Ironically, the current Sears-branded credit card is a Mastercard instead. It's also interesting to hear that Discover Card was trying to be so merchant-friendly, seeing as these days it doesn't seem like all that many places accept Discover Card.
DeleteThat whole store credit card discussion is something I've never thought about. They're very much before my time, and I didn't realize they were such a common thing back then. I know some stores (like Macy's and Target) still have their own credit cards, but they're a rather niche product compared to store-branded normal credit cards. I guess I just figured that's how it has always been, but it makes sense that old credit setups were more localized before communications technology started to advance.
If you're ever interested in seeing all Sears was involved in during the 1980s, this video with the Sears Centennial Choir discusses many of the different operations Sears was involved in at the time. If that choir is still around, they'd probably sing "We Were Sears" instead of "We Are Sears", eh?
Deletehttps://youtu.be/fHRv_4XtHKs
In case you're wondering why Sears celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1986 and their 125th anniversary just a few years ago, well, lol. I think they were celebrating different things. One was probably celebrating Richard Warren Sears' first retail operations and the other probably celebrates the formal establishment of Sears, Roebuck, & Company. That's my guess at least.
Yeah, that's a lot of different things for Sears to be involved with!
DeleteWhile you're here, have you seen this video? Someone posted it over in Discord. It shows all sorts of old retail stuff, including some nice footage of the outside of a White Front, though sadly it lacks any information about where the stores are (and I'm not sure what stores the interior footage was taken in).
I think I have seen that video, or something similar, before. It's neat seeing those old stores in high quality video. If you look in the user comments in that video for a comment by 'Robtimus Cron', he/she mentions the specific locations for those stores. It appears they were all in the San Francisco area. I figured they were all from California.
DeleteI do remember Gemco. They were in Houston.
It really is! I hadn't heard of Gemco, but I have to wonder if they were ever up here, since that store looks like some Fred Meyers out there. Then again, I might just be thinking that because the paint scheme looks quite a bit like the one Fred Meyer is currently using!
DeleteMembership stores like Gemco were popular for a brief period of time. Well, I suppose they still are popular (look at Costco!), but those modern ones are warehouse stores. Some of the earlier ones were more traditional style discount/department stores.
DeleteI think the reason why membership stores started to grow was they were exempt from resale price maintenance laws that were on the books in the mid-20th century that were enacted to help smaller retailers not get killed off by chain stores. The laws essentially required products to be sold at a controlled range of prices that allowed smaller retailers to not be as disadvantaged. It meant that customer service, store decor, things like credit availability, and so forth were more important in generating sales than having low prices. It's one reason why nice department stores existed then and are barely hanging on today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resale_price_maintenance#United_States_law
Korvette's on the east coast is credited with the membership model to work around the price maintenance laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korvettes
Sears, Montgomery Ward, and JCPenney could kind of work around the price maintenance laws since they sold most of their products at that time under their own brand names. Since they were the manufacturer (though often they just contracted with other companies to make their stuff) and the retailer, they had freedom to set their own prices.